The Supreme Court ruled Monday that companies cannot be forced to offer insurance coverage for birth control methods they equate with abortion. People on both sides of the issue reacted outside the Supreme Court right after the ruling came down.

A general view of the Word of Life mural, commonly known as Touchdown Jesus before the game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Temple Owls at Notre Dame Stadium.(Photo: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports)

WASHINGTON — Groups representing students at the University of Notre Dame plan to sue the Trump administration to block new rules announced Friday that would allow the school and other employers to stop providing birth control on their employees' and students' health insurance plans.

“Religion is no excuse for employers or universities to dictate their employees’ or students’ health care choices,” said Richard B. Katskee, legal director for Americans United for Separation of Church State, which represents two Notre Dame students. “Taking away access to contraception — a core part of women’s health care — is discrimination, plain and simple.”

The American Civil Liberties Union is also challenging the change on behalf of its members — including Notre Dame law school student Kate Rochat — and workers who are at risk of losing their contraception coverage because of where they work or go to school.

“No woman should ever be denied health care because her employer or university’s religious views are prioritized over her serious medical needs,” Rochat said in a statement.

Notre Dame, which was among the employers that had challenged the contraceptive coverage requirement, praised the change.

Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, said the university believed "critical issues of religious freedom were at stake."

"For that reason, we welcome this reversal and applaud the attorney general’s statement that ‘except in the narrowest circumstances, no one should be forced to choose between living out his or her faith and complying with the law,'" Jenkins said in a statement.

The Trump administration laid the groundwork for Friday’s action through a May executive order promising to protect religious liberty. President Trump signed the order in front of an audience that included the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns which runs homes for the elderly which was one of the groups that challenged the birth control requirement.

Vice President Pence referenced the executive order when he spoke at Notre Dame’s commencement ceremony later that month.

“Just as Notre Dame has stood strong to protect its religious liberty, I’m proud that this president just took steps to ensure that this university and the Little Sisters of the Poor could not be forced to violate their consciences to fully participate in American civic life,” Pence said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday it is expanding the religious exemption for a requirement included in the 2010 Affordable Care Act that insurance plans include contraceptive coverage. The law requires large employers to offer health insurance with a minimum set of benefits, including birth control and other reproductive services, or pay a penalty.

The new rules allow any employer or insurer to stop covering contraceptive services if they have religious beliefs or moral convictions against covering birth control. It would be up to states to determine how companies should make these decisions.

Notre Dame's challenge to the original requirement is pending,

Americans United represents two Notre Dame students who are parties to the case. The students said in court filings that they cannot afford contraceptives on their own and are sexually active.

The percent of people who had to cover some of their birth control costs dropped from more than 20 percent before the ACA to 4% after it went into effect, according the Kaiser Family Foundation. A 2010 Hart Research poll found one in three women voters struggled to afford prescription birth control and 57 percent of women aged 18 to 34 had trouble paying.

Notre Dame's challenge will continue in court while the legal battle begins on the Trump administration's expansion of the religious exemption.

The law already exempted churches, and other houses of worship, from the requirement.

The Supreme Court decided in 2014 that the Affordable Care Act couldn't require employers to offer insurance coverage for certain birth control methods they equate with abortion. The decision applied only to private corporations such as the family-owned companies — including retailer Hobby Lobby — that challenged the law. Women working for those companies would be able to get morning-after pills and IUDs from other sources, such as the government or private insurers.

That Supreme Court decision did not affect religiously affiliated nonprofit employers, such as hospitals and universities, which may certify that they object to covering birth control. If one does so, the institution does not have to arrange or pay for the coverage. Instead, the institution’s insurer must notify enrollees that it is providing them separate coverage for contraceptive services.

Notre Dame argues that the school is still facilitating — and therefore appearing to endorse — the services.

“Put simply, it offends Notre Dame’s sincerely held religious beliefs to play any role in the law,” the university wrote in its challenge.

One in ten larger nonprofits have sought an accommodation from the birth control requirement, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Besides Notre Dame, the largest employer in St. Joseph’s County, more than three dozen nonprofit organizations around the country also challenged the law. Others included Winona Lake-based Grace Schools, the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and other Catholic organizations.

Grote Industries, a Madison-based company that makes vehicle safety systems, and Tonn and Blank Construction of Michigan City had argued in separate cases that it would violate their religious beliefs to include contraceptive services in health coverage offered to employees.

In Notre Dame's challenge, the U.S. Supreme Court last year returned the case to the U.S. District Court to give the parties a chance to reach a settlement.

Kelly Percival, an Americans United attorney, said a settlement is unlikely.

“They can’t settle the case without our consent," she said. "Thus far the government really has not shown interest in bringing us to the table and having a conversation.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders expressed confidence Friday that the administration will win in court.

If the legal battles over the new policy end up in the Supreme Court, Sanders told reporters, "it will show that this administration is on the right side of the law."

Contributing: Jayne O'Donnell.

Contact Maureen Groppe at mgroppe@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @mgroppe.